Latest Paladino blowback: Karim Camara

The fallout from GOP gubernatorial candidate’s remarks about poor people and hygiene has gone viral and now New York lawmakers are starting to weigh in with calls for an apology.

“Absolutely,” Brooklyn Assemblyman Karim Camara said a few minutes ago when Talk-1300 Fred Dicker asked him if he thought an apology was in order.

“It don’t think there’s any room for interpretation,” Camara said, responding to a query about Paladino’s statements were racially insensitive.

Paladino, a Buffalo developer who is challenging Rick Lazio in the GOP primary suggested re-tooling underutilized upstate prisons for dormitories job training centers for the poor.

Poor people from the state’s urban areas would come under a voluntary program, where they could learn work skills and “personal hygiene.” Paladino raised the concept back in June at a meeting with the Westchester/Rockland Journal News and expanded upon it again with Associated Press.

“Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we’ll teach people how to earn their check. We’ll teach them personal hygiene … the personal things they don’t get when they come from dysfunctional homes,” Paladino was quoted as saying.

“That’s what I find alarming, that he views people who are poor as dirty.”

Camara said the one statement itself wasn’t so much the issue, but he noted that Paladino previously found himself in an unwanted spotlight when it was revealed that he had forwarded several racist e-mail jokes after Barack Obama was elected president. “We’re talking about a pattern,” said Camara who is also a minister.